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Anthony Robbins, Michael Jordan, And The Meaning Of Life

What can Anthony Robbins, Michael Jordan, and the meaning of life teach us about succeeding? Do you need to get some self help motivation fuel in your gas tank? Have you been feeling like the gauge is on empty at any point this last week?

Anthony Robbins’ story (adapted from Success Magazine) is pretty well known, but if you have not read about it, he was 19, living in a one bedroom apartment, overweight, washing his dishes in the bathtub, in a dead end job, with few meaningful or functional relationships. He was miserable.

As of today, however, he has has coached U.S. presidents, Fortune 500 CEOs, sports and entertainment superstars trying to reach the next levels of personal excellence in their personal and career lives. What has been the difference?

Self Help Motivation Tip #1: Get Out of No Man’s Land

There are many people who live in what I call ‘No-man’s Land,’ a place where you’re not really happy, but you’re not unhappy enough to do anything about it,” he says. “That’s a dangerous place. It’s a place where people numb themselves to their dreams. It’s where they dismiss hope and accept what’s in front of them instead of driving toward what they really want in life.

Celestine Chua wrote a great article on the fact that we can often be sleepwalking through life, finding out years from now that we are truly miserable for having never truly lived. But how do you get out of the ruts, how do you make a change?

Self Help Motivation Tip #2: Get Emotional!

It’s not enough to be somewhat miserable: you’ve got to get massively miserable! You’ve got to tap into the dissatisfaction you are feeling from living at less than optimal levels in your life. Too many of us settle for less than the extraordinary. I want you to take time to write down all the misery that you are feeling about living in mediocrity. Visualize the pain that you are feeling. Get real about the depression that you feel from ‘just making it’ in life.

The reason I say this is that you’ve got to feel a ton of pain before you are willing to start the journey toward a higher level of personal excellence in your life. Because there are certain advantages of settling for less: it feels safe, it feels comfortable: sure you are miserable, but you don’t have to risk failure.

Self Help Motivation Tip #3: Throw Positive Thinking Out the Window!

What?! You mean I should not practice the law of attraction?

Well, not exactly. But what Tony Robbins is saying, is that we need to get real and get honest about taking personal inventory of our lives. It won’t help you at all if you pretend as though you don’t have a festering wound, visualize healing, but stay away from the doctor.

“Confidence and competence is not the same thing,” Robbins tells SUCCESS, following his return from a recent seminar tour through Australia and India. “No one should go into their garden and chant, “There are no weeds. There are no weeds. There are no weeds.” For people to be true leaders, they have to first see things as they are, not worse. Then see it better than it is, and then make it the way you see it.

In other words, use intelligent thinking that is positive, not just ‘positive thinking.’

Self Help Motivation Tip #4: Get Clear On Where You Want to Go

For some help on developing clarity in your life, I will recommend this article by Lana Kratsova.

This is where Michael Jordan comes in. When he was 16 years old, he was cut from his high school basketball team. He went into his room, shut the door, and cried. Yet, years later, he became one of the best basketball players of all time. What was the difference?

Mental Toughness!

Once you have gotten out of neutral (Get Out of Neutral: Manifest the Life Experience You Desire), the hard but exciting work begins. You’ve got to expect to fail and to encounter adversity. In fact, if you are not failing and encountering adversity, the probability is that you have set your goals too low!

Here are some self help motivation tips to help you develop mental toughness as you proceed toward your goals:

Get clear on your Why. Here is where the positive thinking and communication comes in. As Tony Robbins states, you have to see things how they are now (not better or worse). Then, you need to see things how you want them to be. Once you have a grand vision, one that excites and pumps you up, and one that is in line with your core values and purpose, you will then have the fuel to keep going when things get tough.

Talk to yourself. Talk to yourself in the second person, and give yourself the same positive pep talks you would give someone that you would be coaching. You can be tough on yourself (in a good way, Jillian Michael’s style on the Biggest Loser) or you can be compassionate when needed. Personally, I like to memorize verses from the Bible to guide my thinking and my inner dialogue. I’ve also found cognitive behavior psychology to be very helpful in shaping positive and realistic dialogue in terms of how I think to myself. I highly recommend the Thoughts & Feelings: Taking Control of Your Moods and Your Life (Workbook Workbook), which I personally have used, and which I often incorporate into my own counseling practicewith clients I work with.

Utilize visualization and meditation. Michael Jordan talks fondly about ‘the shot’ that he took in one of his final NCAA championship playoffs. Often, when going to games on the team bus, he would ‘daydream’ about taking the game winning shot. He visualized this over and over, and when the time came to take that long baseline shot, he sunk that shot! Olympic athletes and professional players, especially the most skilled, will visualize the entire game beforehand, seeing themselves succeed. It helps to have an hour of power in the morning. You don’t have to levitate off the floor or be concerned about getting ‘way out there’ in your philosophy. The importance and benefit of slowing down the brain waves by meditating has been well documented. Take time during the first hour of the day to connect with your main mission, vision/purpose, and goals. I take time to pray, read the Bible, and journal. It’s like plugging your iPhone into the charger when it’s on low battery. By the time you are done, you will have a full battery to head into the adversities that may come your way.

Get uncomfortable. I wrote previously about this subject when addressing career atrophy. In sports, if you are training for a race, you can’t just jog at the same pace every day. You have to push yourself past your limits once in a while. The same goes in the game of life. You have to show yourself that you can do things that you did not think possible. Things like skydiving, taking acting lessons, or learning to tango can make you uncomfortable, but they will also send you the message that you are able to handle stress, and are able to problem solve and think critically.

Listen to the experts. Again, personally, the Bible is my #1 source of direction for living and purpose. I also like to read blogs that speak of personal excellence and personal growth, so that I can continue to feed my brain with good mental nutrition. Hang out, both online and offline with people who will encourage you, not bring you down.

Ask the right questions. When you bump up against adversity, ask, “What next?” Don’t dwell on the failure. Do ask yourself what you can learn from your failure. But don’t beat yourself up. Ask yourself, “What am I going to do about it?” What went well for me today?” Journaling is a very helpful way to capture your thoughts in this regard.

Self Help Motivation Tip #7: Go Beyond Success to Significance

Steven Covey talks at length about business moguls who strive after accomplishments, only to find that they are unhappy and unfulfilled. I have written about my own need to make sure that I am working to go beyond success to significance. Personally, I make sure that my values are taken from my core belief system, which is informed by the Bible. Make sure that the level of personal excellence you are striving for matches up with your core values. If you need help identifying your core values, you may want to take time to do so. Here are some resources to help you with clarifying your values:

For example, do you place a high value on family? Too many men have striven after monetary or career achievement goals at the expense of time with their wives and children. Years later, sitting in their corner office, they may reflect bitterly on the cost they have paid in broken relationships with their wives and children.

This is just one example.

Summing it all up:

Get out of No Man’s Land!

You can only do this when you get in touch with the very real pain you are experiencing by living in mediocrity. Each of us has so much potential to achieve more than we ever thought possible. Throw positive thinking out the window, in the sense that you can’t just wish you had a better life.

You have to be able to honestly see where you are right now, get clear on where you want to go, and fight through adversity to get there. Just make sure that you are choosing the right wall the lean your ladder up against, so that when you get there, you will have success AND significance!

Reader Interactions

Comments

Great article Stephan! As my many of coaches have said no pain, no gain. All the laws of attraction and being positive never get as much done as plain old hard work. Too many people want to get rich quick and that’s what keeps them from reaching their full potential. Sticking too it, and practicing and really learning your area of expertise will win the game every time. Thanks for sharing your perspective.

Yes, Karin, it may appear to be surprising, but unfortunately we are sometimes more comfortable with moderate misery than with the pleasure of accomplishment: the fear of the unknown, the fear of success, the fear of failure, and the fear of hard work often hold us back from making a change that will benefit us in the long term.Steve-Personal Success Factors recently posted…Anthony Robbins- Michael Jordan- And The Meaning Of Life

I love this and you did a nice job with it, but I do have a problem with your #5. First you say throw it out the window, then at the end you say don’t rely on it on its own, which then isn’t throwing it out the window.

Obviously I view it much differently, and so did Zig Ziglar, who said that positive thinking won’t help you do everything, but it will help you do everything better than negative thinking. For many people, the first step to changing behavior is to change their mindset, and what better way is there towards the beginning steps of progress than deciding to have a positive mindset?

Mitch, it’s quite an honor to hear from you. Thanks for your feedback. You may be surprised to find out that I agree with you. I probably wasn’t clear in communicating my point. I do believe in positive thinking. But I believe in realistic positive thinking, paired with a realistic assessment of where we are currently. If we deny or overlook our own faults/weaknesses, we will be stunting our future personal growth. Does that make sense?

It does make sense. If you’re 55 years old and 5’6″ and decide you want to try to become a NBA center, no amount of positive thinking will get you there. But if you’re 50 and decide you want to become a dentist, it might be hard but with the right determination and work one could get there by using the power of positive thinking. Some might say it’s impossible, but it’s been done. There has to be a sense of reality and a big dose of effort, otherwise it’s just wasting time.

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